Malena Szlam: Inexistent Time

MALENA SZLAM: INEXISTENT TIME
at the WNDX Festival of Moving Image

In partnership with Mujer Artista

When: Thu Oct 7, 2021 | 7pm
Where: Winnipeg Cinematheque, 100 Arthur St.
Admission: pay-what-you-can

FILMS:

Chronogram of Inexistent Time (Cronograma de un tiempo
inexistente)
2008, 35mm to digital, colour, silent, 6:00 min., Chile/Canada
Chronogram is a photomontage that explores stillness, motion, and memory. Using a 35mm still camera, multiple exposures were composed and edited in-camera, creating frameless sequences of images printed on 35mm filmstrips. When projected, these images become a non-linear, non-synchronized collage. The ephemeral quality of the images—their transparency, layering, and repetition—invites us to reflect on the role memory plays in perception, the ways we mentally reconfigure fragments to construct stability and
meaning in an environment of perpetual flux.

Rhythm Trail
2010 – 2011, Super 8mm, colour, silent, 10:00 min., Chile/Canada
Like notes written in a diary, Rhythm Trail is an open-ended film composed of a series of Super 8mm sketches edited in-camera. These collected notes are traces of moments and places that reflect
on the immediacy of sight.

Anagrams of Light (Anagramas de luz)
2011, Super 8mm, colour, silent, 3:00 min., Canada
Light breaks the darkness in playful rapture—a film dedicated to my dear friend Javiera.

Beneath Your Skin of Deep Hollow (Bajo tu lámina de agujero
profundo)
2010, Super 8mm to 16mm, colour, silent, 3:40 min., Canada
Beneath Your Skin of Deep Hollow translates night and water into arrhythmic movements of light in a fugue of colours. Shifting impressions emerge on the surface of an agitated stillness, while darkness illuminates reflections and sight.

Lunar Almanac
2013, 16mm, colour, silent, 4:00 min., Canada
“Lunar Almanac initiates a journey through magnetic spheres with its staccato layering of single-frame, long exposures of a multiplied moon. Shot in 16mm Ektachrome and hand processed, the film’s artisanal touches are imbued with nocturnal mystery.” —Andréa Picard, TIFF Wavelengths, 2014

Morfología de un sueño (Morphology of a Dream)
2015 – 2018, 16mm, colour, silent, 5:30 min., USA/Canada
Morphology of a Dream is a visual study of the rhythms of sleep cycles during the phase of rapid eye movement. Filmed in the forest in Colorado, Morphology explores an oneiric world that expresses place and memory in a fleeting succession of colours and sensations hovering between the “real” and abstract worlds.

ALTIPLANO
2018, 35mm, colour, sound, 15:30 min, Canada/Chile/Argentina
Filmed in the Andean Mountains in the traditional lands of the Atacameño, Aymara, and Calchaquí-Diaguita in Northern Chile and Northwest Argentina, ALTIPLANO takes place within a geological universe of ancestral salt flats, volcanic deserts, and coloured lakes. Fusing earth with sky, day with night, heartbeat with mountain, and mineral with iridescent cloud, ALTIPLANO reveals a vibrating landscape in which a bright blue sun forever threatens to eclipse a blood-red moon. Coupled with a soundscape generated from infrasound recordings of volcanoes, geysers, Chilean blue whales, and more, ALTIPLANO creates evocative visual rhythms through the clash of color and form. Landscapes pulse and stutter, transmuting into spaces that exist in a multitude of times simultaneously. Located at the heart of a natural ecosystem threatened by a century of saltpeter and nitrate mining practices, and recent geothermic exploitation, ALTIPLANO reveals an ancient land standing witness to all that is, was, and will be